Mononoke Hime

Continuing the course I mentioned earlier, today we saw Mononoke Hime. Once again, it’s a first for me…yeah…I know it’s a classic. OTL

Some of you might think it’s weird that I’ve not seen this one before, and maybe even more if I say that except for this one, Spirited Away is the only other film by Studio Ghibli I’ve seen, and that pretty recently too.
I know Studio Ghibli are famous, that they make good movies and what not, but there has not really been any longing from my side.

I actually didn’t like Spirited Away that much, which surprised me a bit since all I spoke to said that they absolutely loved it. I think the theme was the part I didn’t like. Theme and some of the characters. It all felt very…bizarre. And it didn’t really help how beautifully it was put together…

But thankfully, Mononoke Hime left a much, much better impression. I liked it very much actually…(partly due to me finding San as a bit of a tsundere and pretty hot <.<‘)

Nicely animated and overall just pleasant to watch. The soundtrack was pretty nice too but what I probably liked most of all was that I don’t have to say that I didn’t like the story again.

After we watched it, we got divided into groups and had to analyze it a bit. I’m no big fan of such analyzing, actually.
I think there’s nothing wrong with enjoying something and leave it at that. I’m usually not interested in digging and thinking about “why this and that character were portrayed this or that way” or “this director is known for these thoughts, can you find them in the work, and if not, what DOES it want to express?” and things like that. Well, of course I had some thoughts too, mostly about the ending, but I don’t really feel like taking them up since I feel that those are pretty unlike me and they are simple enough to have been brought up before me. I mean, it’s from 1997 after all.

If I need to complain on something though, it has to be that…it really felt more like Disney than what I would call “anime”, but that doesn’t apply just to this one and that’s kinda why I haven’t checked out more of Studio Ghibli’s works in the first place.
…oh, and that in the version we saw, the subtitles were just the written version of the american dub, which didn’t really go that well with was actually being said or not said, in some places. : /

I think we’ll have the 1st Ghost In The Shell movie next week, looking forward to that 🙂